FROM CHAIRMAN MAO’S WORKS:

“If every man in our heroic and combat-worthy Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies
becomes able not only to fight and do mass work but also to produce, we need fear no
difficulty and shall be ‘invincible under heaven’, to use the words of Mencius.”

— Get Organized!

The Whole Country Should Become a Great School of Mao Tse-tung’s Thought

— In Commemoration of the 39th Anniversary of the
Founding of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army

[This article is reprinted from Peking Review, Vol. 9, #32, Aug. 5,
1966, pp. 6-7. Thanks are due to the WWW.WENGEWANG.ORG
web site for some of the work done for this posting.]

FULL 39 years have elapsed since the founding of the
Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

This great people’s army founded by Comrade Mao Tse-tung
himself and directly led by him has always maintained and carried forward the glorious
tradition of being “at the same time a fighting force, a working force and a production
force” throughout the past decades — both in the protracted and arduous fighting against
the class enemy at home and abroad during the years of revolutionary wars, and, since the
nationwide victory, in the course of shouldering the task of defending and building up
the socialist motherland and safeguarding peace in the Far East and the whole world. In
recent years, in accordance with the instructions of the Central Committee of the Chinese
Communist Party, the Military Commission of the Party’s Central Committee and Comrade Lin
Piao, the Liberation Army has held aloft the great red banner of Mao Tse-tung’s thought,
undertaken the creative study and application of Chairman Mao’s works, vigorously given
prominence to proletarian politics, developed the “three-eight” working style,*
participated in the socialist education movement and the great proletarian cultural
revolution, taken part and helped in socialist construction, and made another big stride
forward along the road to becoming an even more highly proletarianized, revolutionized
and militant army.

The masses of people in our country have always seen
the Liberation Army as an example from which to learn. Since 1964, in response to the
great call of Comrade Mao Tse-tung, the people throughout the country have set going an
enthusiastic movement for learning in a big way from the Liberation Army. This has played
a tremendous role in advancing our country’s socialist revolution and socialist
construction.

Comrade Mao Tse-tung recently pointed out: The
People’s Liberation Army should be a great school. In this great school, our armymen
should learn politics, military affairs and culture. They can also engage in agricultural
production and side occupations, run some medium-sized or small factories and manufacture
a number of products to meet their own needs or for exchange with the state at equal
values. They can also do mass work and take part in the socialist education movement in
the factories and villages. After the socialist education movement is over, they can
always find mass work to do, so that the army will for ever be at one with the masses.
They should also participate in the struggles of the cultural revolution to criticize the
bourgeoisie whenever they occur. In this way, the army can concurrently study, engage in
agriculture, run factories and do mass work. Of course, these tasks should be properly
co-ordinated, and a distinction should be made between the primary and secondary tasks.
Each army unit should engage in one or two of the three fields of activity — agriculture,
industry and mass work, but not in all three at the same time. In this way, our army of
several million will he able to play a very great role indeed.

It has been Comrade Mao Tse-tung’s consistent idea that
the people’s army should be run as a great school of revolution. We did so in the past.
Now, in the light of the new conditions, Comrade Mao Tse-tung has put higher demands on
the Liberation Army.

Comrade Mao Tse-tung has called on the people of
the whole country to turn China’s factories, rural people’s communes, schools, trading
undertakings, service trades and Party and government organizations into great schools
for revolutionization like the Liberation Army.

Comrade Mao Tse-tung has pointed out:

While the main activity of the workers is in
industry, they should at the same time also study military affairs, politics and culture.
They, too, should take part in the socialist education movement and in criticizing the
bourgeoisie. Where conditions permit, they should also engage in agricultural production
and side occupations, as is done at the Taching Oilfield.

While the main activity of the peasants in the
communes is in agriculture (including forestry, animal husbandry, side occupations and
fisheries), they, too, should at the same time study military affairs, politics and
culture. Where conditions permit, they should also collectively run some small factories.
They should also criticize the bourgeoisie.

This holds good for students too. While their main
task is to study, they should in addition to their studies, learn other things, that is,
industrial work, farming and military affairs. They should also criticize the bourgeoisie.
The period of schooling should be shortened, education should be revolutionized, and the
domination of our schools by bourgeois intellectuals should by no means be allowed to
continue.

Where conditions permit, those working in commerce,
in the service trades and in Party and government organizations should also do the
same.

This brilliant idea of Comrade Mao Tse-tung is of great
historic significance.

Comrade Mao Tse-tung has summed up all of China’s
experience in socialist revolution and socialist construction, studied all the experience
of the international proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat since
the October Revolution, in particular drawing serious lessons from the carrying out of
the restoration of capitalism by the Khrushchev revisionist clique in the Soviet Union,
and has creatively provided the scientific answers to the questions of how to prevent a
restoration of capitalism, consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat and guarantee
the gradual transition to communism.

The idea set forth by Comrade Mao Tse-tung that every
field of work should be made Into a great school for revolutionization, where people take
part both in industry and agriculture, in military as well as civilian affairs — such is
our programme.

By acting in accordance with what Comrade Mao Tse-tung
has said, it will be possible to elevate the proletarian ideology of our people very
considerably, push forward the revolutionization of people’s thinking, and help them to
break away from all the old ideology, culture, customs and habits surviving from the old
society. Hence it will be possible to build socialism with still greater, faster, better
and more economical results, and more quickly root out the social and ideological bases
for capitalism and revisionism.

By acting in accordance with what Comrade Mao Tse-tung
has said, it will be possible to promote the step-by-step narrowing of the gap between
workers and peasants, town and countryside and mental and manual labour; to prevent
abnormal urban and industrial development; to enable intellectuals to become at the same
time manual workers and manual workers at the same time intellectuals; and to train
hundreds of millions of new communist people who have a high degree of political
consciousness and are developed in an all-round way.

By acting in accordance with what Comrade Mao Tse-tung
has said, it will be possible to turn all the people into soldiers and greatly strengthen
our combat preparedness. Should imperialism dare to invade us, it will be drowned in the
great ocean of people’s war.

By acting in accordance with what Comrade Mao Tse-tung
has said, the 700 million people of our country will all become critics of the old world
as well as builders and defenders of the new world. With hammer in hand they will be able
to do factory work, with hoe, plough or harrow they will be able to do farming, with the
gun they will be able to fight the enemy, and with the pen they will be able to express
themselves in writing.

In this way, the whole country will be a great school
of Mao Tse-tung’s thought, a great school of communism.

It is in accordance with this idea of Comrade Mao
Tse-tung that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army has worked in the last few decades
and is still continuously developing and improving itself. The Liberation Army is the
best great school for studying Mao Tse-tung’s thought. All factories, rural people’s
communes, schools, shops, service trades, and Party and government organizations in the
country must follow the example set by the Liberation Army and turn themselves into
great schools of Mao Tse-tung’s thought.

The broad masses of the workers, peasants and soldiers,
the revolutionary cadres and revolutionary intellectuals, and all members of the
Communist Party should draw inexhaustible strength, wisdom and courage from this
brilliant instruction of Comrade Mao Tse-tung, and struggle to fulfil the great historic
task put forward by the Party and Comrade Mao Tse-tung.